Local media often gets ridiculed for a number of different reasons, but I’ve noticed one thing becoming more prevalent lately that really ticks me off. Given that sites like YouTube and Facebook have encouraged sharing photos and video in the past few years, it’s a given that local media looks up names on all of those types of sites when doing any number of different types of reports. Perhaps they just want to get a photo of someone or want to show some type of video as their “video of the day”.
That’s fine. I understand the privacy concerns, but if some reporter at a local TV news station can find your material, it’s because you chose to make it public. That’s an entirely separate issue, however. What irritates me about these instances is the incorrect and lazily attributed citation that they give this material. I guarantee you that nine times out of ten, you will see a video or photo shown in this manner attributed specifically to YouTube or Facebook. Joe Q. Public isn’t going to think too much of this, but there are a number of things wrong with this:
- They’re suggesting that they’ve contacted YouTube or Facebook directly requesting permission, which you know they haven’t.
- They’re failing to correctly credit the originator of the material, instead crediting the platform and not the user of it.
- Even though the material is public, the incorrect attribution suggests that they’ve not contacted the originator or family of the originator directly requesting permission to air it.
- It’s lazy half-assed journalism.
Perhaps the thing that scares me the most about this tactic is that it further distances content originators away from their material. If it weren’t for original content that these people are creating, sites like YouTube, Facebook, Digg, etc, would have nothing. These types of sites are already benefitting greatly from what we freely give them already, shame on the lazy media for further giving credit to where it’s not due.
This one would run a bit long due to accompanying videos, so I’m including the rest of my picks in an extended post after the jump. I found this one the hardest to pick so far, as I buck just about every trend there’s been when it comes to TV in the past ten years. I couldn’t even bring myself to pick five shows, as I guess I just don’t watch that much TV.
4. Mythbusters
The Hot Water Heater Myth is probably my favorite they ever did on the show. It’s such an awesome and unexpected explosion, but it teaches you some real science that you can put to use to make sure that this doesn’t happen in your house. I can’t think of any other show ever that both entertains you and educates you so much at the same time.
Our third annual LAN Party here at UAH where I work at was around a month ago, and I’m proud to call it a great success. We had approximately 500 attendees this year, making it our biggest yet. Now that we’ve had this a number of times and have gotten the chaos of the event down to a science, I’m able to stand back and admire the monster we’ve created.
It’s grown from a small section of what was basically a library party to an entire carnival of its own in a span of two years. Where once small mom and pop stores laughed at us in our face at the idea of sponsorship, we’re now gotten enthusiastic support from the likes of Harmonix and Barnes and Noble. Even our surrounding campus community is getting in on it, our Admissions office was a huge help this year because they saw the value of the event as a recruitment tool.
I don’t know if it crosses the line between something healthy and vanity, but the LAN Party is the thing that I take the most pride in at my job. Mostly because it combines just about everything I’m professionally enthusiastic about. Graphic design comes into play when I make the promotional material, web design for the site for the event, and also a holdover from my days living in dorms when I really got a lot of enjoyment out of campus event planning. It’s both humbling and adrenaline pumping to see this monster continue to grow every year.
Technically speaking, this was the happiest I have been with our set up so far. We experimented with this a bit earlier this year while helping out with a much smaller event, but we finally got our Rock Band set up perfect this time around. We had a complete four person set up on an actual stage that is often used for real concerts in the same space. The participants would look at a large flat screen in front of them to see their notes, and the same image was projected behind them for onlookers to see. We even had the audio coming through the powerful house speakers and had actual concert stage lights on stage with the participants that flashed and changed colors in sync with the music. Everyone seemed to love it, and I can’t wait to do it again.
We did have some hiccups with the PC LAN section of our party, but we’re almost certain that this was due to some faulty equipment that was lent to us. We’re hoping that increased funding down the road can help solve this problem when we’re able to buy our own equipment to dedicate solely to future LAN parties.
I hope that universities and even high schools can see the value in these type of events. First and foremost, we provide this event for the campus community. It’s a great social environment for both on and off campus students to take part it, students seem to continue to meet new friends that share their interest in gaming. Also as I stated above, it’s an enormously effective recruitment tool. Out of the 500 attendees we had this year, approximately one third of them were composed of local high school students. They seemed to be psyched about the idea that this is a yearly event for us and that they’d be able to take part again as a student of UAH. On that note, it’s also great for student retention. Student life at a university is far more than just about academics, and it’s great to give students a reason to continue to coming back for more than just the prospect of an earned degree.
For anyone looking to do a similar event at other high schools or universities, my biggest advice would be to overplan. These things can become far more popular than you might imagine, and you will likely have more participation than you plan on. Also, ensure that you have enough support. Due to the size of our event this year, this was the first time that we really ran short on help. Having multiple tournaments with the need for a person to handle sign-in’s at the door ran us a bit ragged this time around, and we’ll know to look for more volunteers or even pay for additional support next time around. But perhaps my biggest piece of advice is to not look at this like a job. It’s an incredibly rewarding event for everyone, including the organizers. Even though I didn’t have much time to actually play any of the games, it was still hard to believe I was getting paid to do this.
Today marks the first day of the last month of this decade, which is a pretty intimidating thought. I can’t speak for everyone, but it seems as if it’s both flown by and taken forever at the same time for me. I think that when we’re able to look back at the 2000’s in around ten or twenty years, this is really going to be the decade of progression in technology. It’s not only been the decade where the internet grew up to become a big boy, but it’s also when digital entertainment such as video games became a viable industry giving Hollywood heavy competition.
So not unlike my previous post picking my favorite movies of this past decade, I wanted to share what I thought have been the best five video games of the past ten years. Like I’ve said before, these don’t necessarily mean that they are the best. Just that they are for whatever reasons, the ones that I enjoyed the most. Your mileage may vary, and you’re welcome to tell me how or why in the comments.
5. New Super Mario Bros (DS) - If I were doing this same list for the 90’s, I’d likely pick Super Mario 3 for NES as my favorite. After some of the SNES Mario games, there hadn’t really been a true sequel to the series that kept it to it’s simplistic 2D roots. New Mario did that and made it felt like the series hadn’t ever left. I’ve still not tried the Wii sequel to this game, but I imagine I’ll be replaying it time and time again like I have the DS version.
4. The Sims (PC) – Before going any further with this, I should state that I am specifically talking about the original Sims released back in 2000. In no way do I care for any of the thousand add-ons, sequels, and spin offs. The original Sims was awesome because it was a simple concept that you could take in whatever direction you wanted, not the one that developers pushed you in.
3. Mass Effect (360) – I’ve never been a huge fan of Japanese RPG’s. I often find myself quickly stopping to care about lengthy stories that drag on and on, and I’ve just never really had that much fun with turn based battle. That said, I still love RPG’s. Which you’d think would be a paradox, but games like this come around every so often that keep me into the genre. Mass Effect is equal parts Zelda, Halo, and Final Fantasy, without really looking like any of the above. It’s easily accessible, but deep enough to keep you involved for hours.
2. Metroid Prime Trilogy (Gamecube / Wii) – There are so many factors you can talk about when describing why this series was so great. The graphics have always been ahead of their time, even on relatively underpowered systems. The puzzles in each game are some of the toughest and most satisfying out of any adventure game. The exploration aspect is unlike any other game, even compared to any of the Grand Theft Auto games. The art direction is fantastic.
There are tons of different things you can point out, and each of those equal an immensely satisfying whole. Metroid Prime 3 on Wii was the best of the series because of the awesome Wii control it gave you, which in my opinion is still the best use of the Wii Remote yet. Here’s hoping this series isn’t done and can come back sometime in the Wii’s lifetime.
1. Rock Band (Multi) - I really didn’t even have to debate picking this as my favorite game of the decade. It honestly is my favorite, but this pick sums up the fact that music games really owned the past ten years. Guitar Hero started the trend, but it was really just an appetizer for the completely unique fun that Rock Band offers. I really can’t think of another game (aside from the recent Left 4 Dead series perhaps) in which four players work with each other to accomplish such a satisfying goal.
And of course, that fun transcends from just the screen alone. Rock Band has broken the mold of what you’d consider to be a video game by offering you just as much fun in your physical living room as what you’re seeing on screen. I’ve had far more fun with Rock Band than any other game, perhaps ever, and I don’t hesitate whatsoever in picking it as my favorite.
Honorable Mention: James Bond: Nightfire (Gamecube) – This probably seems a little silly, but I can’t forget this game at all. While most of our peers our age were busy playing the original Halo, my friends and I simply could not get enough of this game. The single player mode of this game was pretty typical and forgettable, but I can’t imagine how many hours of our lives we lost to multiplayer. Specifically, 2 vs 2 Capture The Flag. The maps and weapons were simple enough that we had the whole thing down to a perfectly balanced and ridiculously fun science. My friends and I played this game for hours on just about every Monday night for nearly a year, and I’d give anything to do it all over again.
This doesn’t really have a good place on the web announcing the event, so I thought I’d do my part in getting the word out.
The Alabama Garrison of the Imperial 501st will be having their annual Christmas fundraiser benefitting the Make a Wish Foundation this Saturday, December 5. The event will be at Parkway Place Mall in Huntsville, Alabama from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm. For a five dollar donation to Make a Wish, you can have your photo taken with any or all of approximately twenty professional Star Wars costumers.
Characters in attendance will mainly be Star Wars villains, but other characters such as Chewbacca have appeared at this same event in the past. Stop by the main entrance at Parkway Place this Saturday and meet the 501st near the escalators leading to the food court area.
